“I want to make my friends, my fam­i­ly, the peo­ple who know me and my coun­try proud.”- Khadi­ja Shaw.

This week­end gone, out­stand­ing Man­ches­ter City and Ja­maica women’s na­tion­al team play­er Khadi­ja “Bun­ny” Shaw was in the news for her out­stand­ing play and a pow­er­ful ges­ture. The type of ac­tion, which takes tremen­dous self-aware­ness and a deep un­der­stand­ing of the big­ger pic­ture.

In these days of USA Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump and his bil­lion­aire friends, an­ti-racism and an­ti-dis­crim­i­na­tion ac­tions are not the in thing.

With ma­jor cor­po­rate en­ti­ties run­ning for cov­er and walk­ing back DEI (Di­ver­si­ty, Eq­ui­ty and In­clu­sion) in an ef­fort not to an­tag­o­nise the mighty “Ea­gle”. What we are wit­ness­ing is the re­al­i­ty of con­ve­nience over con­vic­tion. As in card games so too life. Trump rules. And all else play and fol­low suit. Trump holds all the face cards–ace, king, queen and jack with 10s thrown in for good mea­sure.

How­ev­er, no one shared the Trump play­book with Khadi­ja “Bun­ny” Shaw or if they did, she is hav­ing none of it. Shaw bowed her head and raised a gloved fist af­ter scor­ing a goal on her first start for Man­ches­ter City Women since pulling out of the team be­cause of racist abuse di­rect­ed at her on so­cial me­dia.

A pow­er­ful mes­sage in the fight against racism not on­ly in sport but in wider so­ci­ety. She had the courage of her con­vic­tion and chose con­vic­tion over con­ve­nience. Her ges­ture will at­tract even more vit­ri­ol, racist and misog­y­nis­tic abuse but Shaw would have known that when she de­cid­ed to do what she did. It took courage. Brav­ery.

It was the Ja­maican’s first start since suf­fer­ing a leg in­jury on De­cem­ber 8. As she cel­e­brat­ed af­ter one of her goals, she stood with her right fist raised and her head bowed–the Black Pow­er salute.

An an­ti-racism ges­ture done by Amer­i­can ath­letes Tom­mie Smith and John Car­los at the 1968 Mex­i­co City Olympics in protest against dis­crim­i­na­tion in the USA.

Shaw, her­self, was the vic­tim of racist abuse fol­low­ing Man­ches­ter City’s 4-3 league de­feat to Ar­se­nal on Feb­ru­ary 2. It was re­port­ed the racist and misog­y­nis­tic on­line abuse was so tox­ic that to pro­tect her men­tal well-be­ing she made her­self un­avail­able to play against Ar­se­nal a few days lat­er when the two teams met again in the League Cup semi­fi­nals. She al­so de­cid­ed not to share the mes­sages pub­licly so as to not give fur­ther pub­lic­i­ty to the of­fen­sive on­line abuse.

One of the best foot­ballers in the world, 28-year-old Shaw was born in Span­ish Town, Ja­maica to George Shaw, a shoe­mak­er, and moth­er Mon­i­ca, a chick­en farmer. She was the youngest of 13 broth­ers and sis­ters. Shaw was nick­named “Bun­ny” by her broth­er Ken­tar­do be­cause of a fond­ness for car­rots at an ear­ly age. She at­tend­ed high school at St Ja­go High School. She lost three broth­ers and a nephew to gang vi­o­lence.

Shaw has earned re­spect for her tenac­i­ty, per­se­ver­ance and courage in over­com­ing her chal­lenges to be­come one of the best foot­ballers of her gen­er­a­tion. Her sto­ry is an in­spi­ra­tion and mo­ti­va­tion to not on­ly Ja­maican youth, who may share a sim­i­lar sto­ry to hers but to all youth sim­i­lar­ly cir­cum­stanced through­out the en­tire Caribbean. Hers is a life of re­al im­pact. In so do­ing, she has made her fam­i­ly, friends, team­mates and coun­try proud. And I dare say the Caribbean.

The courage and brav­ery to choose con­vic­tion over con­ve­nience mat­ters.

Ed­i­tor’s note: The views ex­pressed in the pre­ced­ing ar­ti­cle are sole­ly those of the au­thor and do not re­flect the views of any or­gan­i­sa­tion in which he is a stake­hold­er.